3 reasons liberals will be frustrated if Clinton’s pick for vice president is Tim Kaine

Sen. Timothy M. Kaine (D-Va.) is one of a few people that Hillary Clinton is considering as a potential vice-presidential candidate.

On the one hand, Kaine is the kind of moderate Democrat who would make a sensible, prudent choice for a presidential candidate looking for a running mate in a hotly contested general election. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has shifted to the left in recent years, putting Kaine’s centrist positions on several major issues out of line with the direction of the party.

Here’s a look at where Kaine stands on three of those questions.

Kaine supports President Obama’s international trade deal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and voted to give the president special authority to negotiate the agreement.

“I see much in it to like. I think it’s an upgrade of labor standards. I think it’s an upgrade of environmental standards. I think it’s an upgrade in intellectual property protections,” the former governor of Virginia told The Intercept this week, adding that he has concerns about other aspects of the accord, specifically regarding how disputes between companies and foreign governments would be resolved.

Clinton supervised the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as Obama’s secretary of state and supported the deal at the time. Recently, though, she has said she opposes the final version of the agreement.

“I did say, when I was secretary of state three years ago, that I hoped it would be the gold standard,” Clinton said last year. “In looking at it, it didn’t meet my standards, my standards for more new, good jobs for Americans, for raising wages for Americans.”

Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s unsuccessful rival in the Democratic primary, also opposes the deal, as does Donald Trump, her GOP opponent.

Kaine says he supports the Dodd-Frank Act, the comprehensive and complex financial reform that Congress passed in 2010. At the same time, Kaine has argued for less stringent regulations on some aspects of banks’ operations, and he subscribes to one …